The Ironies of Australian Immigration: Part Two

Continued from the post, “The Ironies of Australian Immigration: Part One.”

Economic growth is the second issue behind the “Big Australia” debate.  Economists argue in Business Week that reducing immigration may increase inflation (rise of prices) by reducing the supply of workers which would drive up wages.  This also has several scale implications.  Within the country, Western Australia would be particularly hard hit as the booming mining sector is in desperate need of workers.  Currently, this creates wage tensions between urban markets on either coast, as reported by The Australian.  Western Australia is forced to increase wages to get workers from the east to move out, thus draining the eastern urban areas of workers, which will then drive up wages there.  This will then lead to a “wage blowout” in Australia, if the country’s regions keep competing with one another.  Further, since that boom in mining is driven by global demands, especially by China.  Any increase in wages in mining would increase prices on those commodities and reduce Australia’s competitiveness, impacting its national economic growth.  Such a situation would have considerable economic costs as the mining sector in Australia is one of its largest export industries.

Another significant Australian export that is already being impacted by immigration issues is higher education, which is chosen by many international students.  A New York Times article reports on the current condition and future of Australia’s third-largest export industry.  Australian universities and education programs are impaired by the strong Australian dollar relative to other currencies that makes an Australian education more expensive.  There is also global competition for these international students that is pitting Australia against better known US and Canadian universities.  Ultimately, it is the tough visa requirements and long wait times of Australian immigration policy that have affected the export of foreign students.  This has led one institution to pursue legal action against the Governments’ current immigration policy.

In the end, the environmental restrictions and discourse on sustainability, combined with the demands of the globalized Australian economy, have led to some ironic socio-economic consequences.  Since population growth needs to be “sustainable” (i.e. limited) and immigration is necessary for economic growth, the compromise is to have immigration policy where not all migrants are created equal.  According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian government manages immigration numbers in two main flows: as permanent migrants or temporary migrants.  The permanent flows include skilled migrants, migrants joining Australian family members, and humanitarian migrants, including asylum-seekers and refugees.  In the terms of Australia’s immigration debate, these are the immigrant groups that are understood to account for population growth.  However, it is the short-term flows of student and business visa holders that are responsible for a significant number of people that end up staying permanently, by applying for residency and thus, adding to Australia’s population.

That situation makes the politics behind the debate more complex.  Officially, the compromise proposed by the government is to highlight the importance of skilled immigration.  Yet, despite that, recent immigration policy has actually made it more difficult to admit skilled immigrants, at least under visas.  The number of skilled professions eligible for visas has been significantly decreased and an updated test for incoming migrants has made English levels, skills qualifications and work experience requirements more stringent.  Both of these impact the numbers of skilled immigrants for business and higher education.  And yet, even those skilled migrants that do arrive with education and training matching or exceeding most native Australians, their skills are being wasted.  Social barriers, like lack of specifically Australian experience, lack of recognition for non-Australian qualifications, or language difficulties, force many “skilled” migrants into low- or medium-skilled occupations.

Moreover, a Telegraph article mentions how most Australians are inundated with news reports about illegal immigrants, “boat people” and detention centers.  This contributes to a belief that illegal immigration is responsible for “overcrowding.”  Although clearly a contentions aspect of Australian immigration, it does not actually have any significant bearing on population growth.  The permanent flow of humanitarian migrants only amounts to 14,000 people, compared to 114,000 for skilled permanent migrants.  Moreover, only 3,000 of those humanitarian migrants are admitted as refugees or asylum-seekers once they reach Australian shores.  Most “boat people” await deportation in detention centers throughout Australia and the Oceania region.

All of this is beyond the concern of many Australians who are worried over the increased the pressures on the existing urban centers with rising housing costs and congestion.  It is these average Australians that pressure the government by polling their opposition to population growth (i.e. immigration).  Since most Australians are located in the densely urbanized East, they form a significant bloc of voters that oppose immigration because of their experience or perception of its ills.  It is eastern Australians that want sustainable population growth and resultantly stifle economic growth for western mining and the international education sector.  The ironies of Australian immigration are found at the intersection of economic growth and environmental sustainability; and they offer no path to please all sides.

Concept Caching: Alice Springs, Australia

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

"My most vivid memory from my first visit to Alice Springs is spotting vineyards and a winery in this parched, desert environment as the plane approached the airport. I asked a taxi driver to take me there, and got a lesson in economic geography." (c)H. J. de Blij

Australia is a land of striking contrasts, especially in regards to human-environment patterns.  As the post, The Ironies of Australian Immigration describes, there is an inherent tension between growing populations, sprawling settlements and the economic activities that must sustain them.  This image of Alice Springs speaks to that tension.  This city is located in the heart of the Australian Outback, an incredibly vast arid landscape.  It seems as if its environmental context both economically supports the city and keeps its growth in check.  The city services its historically dominant pastoral and mining sectors, while also incorporating a significant tourist industry.

 

The Ironies of Australian Immigration: Part One

Australia is very well known for its history as a nation of immigrants, from its start as a British penal colony to its contemporary diverse immigrant society.  As with much of the developed world, Australia is a significant destination for immigrants.  Its arrivals come from the regions of Oceania, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia.  The demands of an immigrant destination are particularly acute for Australia.  The island continent’s predominantly arid climate has placed somewhat of a limit on population and settlement.  Its citizens are unevenly distribution over its vast land mass, and they are concentrated in the cities of its temperate coastal areas.  Any growth in its population certainly means further stresses on the fragile environment.  However, population growth, including immigration, has long been a driver of economic growth, in Australia and elsewhere.  Many have argued that immigration is necessary to sustain the growth required in a developed world society.  For Australia, it is this quandary between environment and economy, that immigration policy is currently being debated.  Focused on a proposed policy called “Big Australia,” the question is whether to increase or decrease current immigration flows.  The debate over this policy is especially relevant to geographers because of its spatial considerations:  the human-environment aspect and the discourse of sustainability; the socio-economic consequences of an immigration policy where not all migrants are created equal; and the politics behind Australian decision-making on immigration that stems from existing geographies.

First it is important to understand Australia’s current demographic situation.  According to an article in the Economist, Australia’s population will grow almost two-thirds to 36 million by 2050.  An article from the Sydney Morning Herald explains how most of this growth has not come from natural increase, but from immigration, accounting for 65% of population growth in the last 10 years.  Australia’s fertility rate, providing the births as one half of the natural increase rate, is a modestly high 1.9 births per woman; yet, it is still below the replacement level of 2.1 births.  So, as with other developed countries, Australia’s native population is also getting older.  The Economist article states that the number of Australians between the ages of 65 and 84 will double and those over 85 will quadruple, also in the next 40 years.  This will increase the country’s dependency ratio, which is the number of persons not of working age for each person of working age.  The dependency ratio has significant social and economic implications for a society.  Ultimately, Australia’s current population growth is already faster than most developed countries, due to immigration.  And, it will also be facing a difficult future with an ageing population that will disproportionately consume social services without contributing to the tax base that pays for them.

The first issue, however, behind “Big Australia” is that of environmental sustainability.  This vast landmass is dominated by an arid climate, where rainfall and vegetation is scarce.  Such a landscape has a limited carrying capacity and simply cannot support agriculture or settlement on the scale of Australia’s population growth.  Fresh water supplies are being exhausted and biodiversity is under threat. Already, Australian population is over 80 percent urban and densely clustered along the temperate eastern coastlines.  Allowing more migrants would mean adding more people to a landscape that is at its settlement threshold.  Suburban sprawl is already creeping out of eastern Australia’s urban centers. This even adds to climate change concerns, as these urban “heat islands” are also congested with people and cars.  It is this line of reasoning behind the current Prime Minister’s slowing of immigration in the interest of sustainability.

The biggest critic of the limiting immigration in favor of sustainability is the business sector, in particular the property development industry.  A lobbyist for the property sector interviewed in a BBC report points to the “Big” in “Big Australia,” with spatial rhetoric: the size of Australia versus the size of Australian cities; using space more efficiently; and there being “room for growth.” Ultimately, he argues that growth, historically and today, has a direct relationship with immigration: the larger the immigration, the faster the economic growth.  However, it must be said that it is property corporations that would stand to gain the most if there were more people and business demanding “room” in a growing Australia.

Stay tuned for the next Part of “The Ironies of Australian Immigration”, which will discuss more issues in Australian immigration policy.

Daylight Saving Time: Why it took nearly two weeks for this post

There are many things in life that our students often taken for granted; they accept without understanding, or just asking “Why?”  It is in our Geography courses that we can inspire students to think critically and consider options thoughtfully.  Daylight saving time (DST) is of these ubiquitous, yet unquestioned practices.  DST is an unwelcome change for many; literally, a loss of our most important asset.  The adjustment is more difficult for all those who are not morning people, and is compounded for those with small children and others with sensitive body clocks.  While we are forced to adjust, not many of us question why we have to set our clocks forward anyway.  A recent National Geographic article has provided some interesting DST background to aid our understanding.  DST has inherently spatial relationships that engage our individual and societal dependence on the rhythms of the Earth-Sun relationship.  Studying this method reveals underlying geographies in its implementation, execution and implications.  More importantly, however, studying DST has also helped to understand why this post took two weeks to complete.

The creation of DST schemes was centered on saving valued resources.  These resources, like today, were the energy commodities essential to productivity, allowing people to work after dark and indoors.  The National Geographic article sites a book by David Prerau, Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time, that tells the stories of DST.  It was the need for war-time conservation of coal that actually saw DST implemented during World War I, again in World War II, and again during the Oil Embargo of 1973-4.  In 2007, a U.S. energy bill was implemented starting DST earlier and ending it later, adding an extra month to DST.  The same arguments about energy saving were reiterated.  Other benefits were also claimed, like reduced crime and traffic fatalities, and increased productivity, recreation and “smiles.”

Beyond states of emergency, DST has not been mandatory, with U.S. states like Arizona and Hawaii choosing not to observe it.  Such optional geographies of DST provide an unexpected opportunity for studying the cost-benefit of DST schemes.  A study of three different Australian states’ power-use data during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games found that ultimately any power-saving was cancelled out as energy demand in the mornings cancelled out any savings from the evenings.  A U.S. study in Indiana had similar findings, which saw that energy-consumption from not just lighting, but also air conditioning contributed to increased afternoon demand.  The study found that consumers’ electric bills were actually higher during DST, as people used their air conditioners more during the warmer spring and summer evenings.  Yet, the spatial analysis of DST seems to also offer evidence to the contrary.  Another study of the entire U.S., commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, shows that at the national scale there were small reductions in overall energy consumption, which still added up to significant energy savings.  The study also found that DST had uneven benefits.  For example, California benefits the most from DST because of its mild weather, not requiring year ‘round climate control appliances.  Northern states also benefit more during DST months relative to Southern states because they do not necessarily need as much air conditioning, which is a major energy consumer.  These studies reveal some of the flaws within such standardized time schemes.

The National Geographic article also describes some of the interesting connections to DST and lifestyles.  As mentioned in the 2007 energy bill, one group argues that the daylight shuffling in DST encourages lifestyles that are more active.  A study mentioned in the article does support that view; during DST people were more likely to include more active outdoor activities, rather than more languid indoor activities.  However, a “chronobiologist” argues that our body clocks never adjust to DST.  A result of that is decreased productivity, increased susceptibility to illness and being frequently tired, all symptoms of “social jet lag.”  He argues that the shift in daylight toward the evening only serves to delay the body clock, affecting sleep schedules and leading to overtiredness.  This overtiredness could also have more serious consequences.  A 2008 Swedish study showed that the risk of heart attack actually increased following the switch to DST.  The study’s author found the most likely explanation for the findings were again related to body clocks and sleep rhythm.

In the end, DST works for some and not for others.  Body clocks or sundials, it is nearly impossible to standardize savings uniformly, whether they are of day light or of resources.  However, to this author, DST is now a fitting seasonal scapegoat for procrastination or listlessness.

 

Geography Directions: Eat to be healthy and save the planet

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

It is well documented that around the world pristine environments are being destroyed to produce some of the food that we eat in the United Kingdom. For instance, the Brazilian savannah or Cerrado is currently being destroyed faster than the Amazon; this is largely due to soy production (most of which is fed to the animals we eat), beef and other agriculture. A further example is that of Borneo whose tropical forests are being cleared to plant palm trees to produce palm oil for biscuits and fish fingers. If everyone in the world lived as we do in the UK we would require two planets by 2030. But now we may be able to save the planet over lunch. Researchers believe that we can and they say that if we all ate what they would like to see on our plates, Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by a quarter, our meat consumption would be reduced drastically and we would be a lot healthier at the same time.  All this comes in the guise of the Livewell Diet, which is a weekly menu assembled by nutritionists, which sets out the best ingredients to balance healthy eating with sustainable food production. The average weekly cost of the diet would be £29 per person.

At present an estimated 79kg of meat a year are consumed by the average UK resident and the Livewell 2020 diet is expected to reduce this to 10kg a year; thus reducing the pressure on natural resources.  Scientists from the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at Aberdeen University have produced the diet commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) which is designed to be familiar and normal. The diet is based on nutritional guidelines from the government for eating healthily. It will also help us meet the 2020 targets for greenhouse gas reductions, as laid out the in UK Climate Change Act by steering away from processed food (whose environmental impacts are due to their extra production, packaging, transportation and energy consumption) and meat.

For a more complete discussion and explanation of the complicated interplay between  human diet, energy, climate change, the financial crisis and the socially and environmentally unsustainable grain–livestock relationship it is recommended to read, Energy, Climate Change, Meat, and Markets: Mapping the Coordinates of the Current World Food Crisis in the Geography Compassjournal. In the meantime the WWF will lobby the government and the food industry to use the Livewell diet as a blueprint and if we just adapt our diets slightly by eating less meat and fewer processed foods, and replacing them with more fruit, vegetables and grains, we’ll be making a positive difference for ourselves and the planet.

By Paulette Cully

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Yemeni Geographies and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

Yemen has emerged as a significant node in global terrorist networks since its connection to the 2009 “underwear bomber” and the 2010 printer bomb plots.  However, it has long been a terrorist hotbed, as the bombing of a U.S. warship in 2000 and subsequent attacks would attest.  Yemen is the center for the group known as “al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.” This offshoot group has a surprising level of cunning shown in the printer bomb plot and organizational sophistication and egregiousness, as evidence in their newsletter Inspire and the.  Understanding why this little known country has become such a focal point in world security discourse is to the task of Geography.  Yemen has all the unfortunate qualities of a terrorist breeding ground.  A Time Magazine video report reveals some of geographic context for this during a road trip from North to South Yemen.  The Time video, along with BBC and Reuters articles, provide some evidence for Yemen’s historical and present-day social, economic and political geographies as necessary background for analyzing this Southwest Asian country’s long propensity for terrorist activity.

As the poorest country in the Arab world, just about 45% of Yemenis live on less than $2 a day.  Not only does that widespread poverty sow discontent, but Yemenis are also nearly equally divided among Shi’ites and Sunnis; itself a troublesome rift that is seen elsewhere in the region.  As a result, the country has been struggling for political stability.  Yemen was once two separate countries, the Yemen Arab Republic or North Yemen and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen or South Yemen.  Both were united into the present state of Yemen in 1990.  The current government is widely seen to be ineffective by many Yemenis.  Some see it as corrupt and useless; unable to provide basic services for its citizens or support its flailing economy.  Some even see it as an illegitimate Western sell out, taking money and orders from outside interests.  The governments’ authority is also weakened by the continuing centrifugal forces that act within the country: the Shi’ite rebellion being waged in the North; the secessionist movement in the South; and the ongoing arms market and terrorism activities among fundamentalist and disaffected Yemenis.  In this context, political instability begets economic stagnation and collapse of authority.  Northern Yemenis have little to nothing in the way of development or an actual economy to provide jobs or services.  Southern Yemenis have some promise that comes from oil fields, tourism, and global shipping networks; however, this limited prosperity is what fuels their calls for secession.  In addition to all this is Yemen’s location as a well positioned country for terrorist activity.  It is located on the edge of Saudi Arabia – al Qaeda’s Arab enemy.  It controls half of one of the world’s most important geographic choke points, the Bab-el-Mandeb connecting the Red and Arabian Seas.  And, it is adjacent to another terrorist haven and failed state, Somalia.

A confluence of site and situation, Yemen has now captured the world’s attention as the latest terrorist stronghold.  What has magnified this further is the release of US diplomatic cables, or communications, on the site Wikileaks.  Without getting into the Wikileaks story on its own, the release of these relatively secret documents has revealed a surprisingly detailed underside of global diplomacy.  Not many places in the world were left unaffected by this event.  For Yemen, the Wikileaks cables revealed the strategies, alliances and troubles of the “war” against al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.  Available for all to see are the connections between the Yemeni government and the United States and the role of the Saudis in fighting al Qaeda at the expense of the Yemeni government.  What is more is the unfortunate side effect of also exposing these connections for al Qaeda operatives, themselves, who may take the information as a propaganda opportunity to further delegitimize the government and enlist more recruits, in Yemen and beyond.

Yemen’s designation as a source of terrorism can certainly be explained by its regional geographic context.  However, it is merely one spoke in a global network of terrorism groups.  Like the other terrorism hotbeds in the world, globalization itself provides the tools and the targets for such extremist activities.  Terrorist groups rely on the same networks of global communications and transportation that they seek to disrupt with bomb plots.  And now, courtesy of Julian Assange, the globalization of political transparency in Wikileaks provides another tool for terrorists to potentially exploit.

Concept Caching: Pan American Highway Virtual Field Trip

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

The Pan-American Highway was a positive development in the 1930s for the transportation network and economic relations between the United States and Mexico.  Since then, that transportation network has been expanded for tourism and other activities.  However, today the highway serves as an important route in a more clandestine network.  The post Geographies of the Mexican Drug War discusses many of the spatial patterns and consequences that are behind the “war” between Mexico’s government, civilians, and drug cartels.  The Pan-American Highway is one of the most significant causeways in drug trafficking because of its connection between the United States and the rest of Central America.

Geographies of the Mexican Drug Wars

Mexico has long been a center of illicit drug production and trafficking.  In the whole of Middle America and South America, Mexico has certainly not been alone in this informal sector activity.  In these regions, the systems of agricultural production and the proximity to a captive market create the conditions for the dominance of the drug economy.

In Middle America, where economic wealth and opportunity is fairly unequal, there are many rural peoples that turn to drug agriculture as an essential livelihood.  Some areas of the region are marked by small farming plots where crop yields tend to be low.  With such constraints, many rural farmers increase their earnings by producing illicit drugs that fetch a significantly higher price than other, non-illicit agricultural products.  In Mexico, one of the major Mexican states for drug production is Sinaloa.  Located on the eastern coast of the Gulf of California, Sinaloa has a long history of opium, marijuana, and cocaine production that stems from 19^th century Chinese immigration, World War II geopolitics, and later Colombian trafficking networks.  That history combined with its short distance from the United States border (only about 2 hours by car) has led the state to become a “hometown” for the Mexican drug economy.

Following production, drugs are then sold to the major export controllers, or traffickers, commonly known as cartels.  The drug cartels “control” the territories that include major trafficking routes from the areas of production to the main area of distribution and consumption: the United States.  The “control” of territories and routes has long required intimidation, bribery or outright violence to secure and facilitate the flow of these illegal goods.  Drug cartels have also developed a “control” network that includes significant figures at all scales, including police, the army, judges, and politicians.  The affects of corruption are seen to upset national-scale politics in trying to fight the drug wars, but also turns states, like Michoacán, into puppet states where elections and everyday governance are manipulated by drug cartels.  Where cartel control is pervasive, as in Sinaloa, the whole of society is skewed as social status is associated with drug complicity.  Such areas where corruption and crime are rampant have been dubbed, “zones of impunity” by the Mexican government and are the targets of the “Mexican drug war” begun in 2006 by President Felipe Calderon.

Increasingly, the actual use of violence among Mexican drug cartels has grossly escalated in their struggles for control over territories and accomplices.  The Los Angeles Times has an ongoing series, “Mexico Under Siege: the drug war at our doorstep,” that has been chronicling the increasingly violent power struggles between these drug cartels.  The series includes an interactive map of the ‘drug war deaths’ that have occurred in each of the 31 Mexican states.  The pattern of deaths in the drug wars reveals that the most important territories of control are Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Baja California.  Located along the US borders, Chihuahua and Baja California represent significant trafficking entry points.  Sinaloa being the lucrative source for locally produced illicit drugs is also itself an entry point for product from elsewhere in Mexico, South America and abroad.  In securing and controlling these strategic territories, what has increasingly fueled violence is a reverse smuggling trade in weapons from the US back into Mexico or even in advanced, military-grade weaponry left over from US efforts in places like Guatemala.

Beyond the violent atrocities of the drug wars, fought between cartels and between cartels and the government, there are many other saddening impacts on the peoples residing in these disputed territories.  In border zones, many of the strongest community members, like business owners, law enforcement, and journalists, are targeted by the drug cartels and are forced to flee, creating a new kind of refugee filing for asylum in the US.  As certain border towns become saturated with violence, many residents also flee creating ghost towns.  And, ironically, even as the government makes positive strides in its drug wars, forcing big players out or underground, it hits local businesses with mini-recessions and new waves of crime as smaller players are cut off from their illegal revenue and turn to petting thievery.  Throughout Mexico, the prevalence of the drug economy is also leading to surging addiction rates as drug cartels also find a new local market for consumption.  Further, the ubiquity and extent of drug violence has also begun to distort Mexico’s social values as people become all to used to the prevalence and visibility of drug-related death.

A Russian re-turn?

Russia has been a significant global and Eurasian presence for much longer than many contemporary Western perspectives give credit to.  This may be because the Russian Realm has existed, and at times prospered, as ideologically distinct from the rest of the world system.  Some historical similarities aside (like, colonialism, imperialism, and empire), autocracy and communism separate this ideological set from the democratic and capitalist nearly everywhere else.  The subtle power of memory and history has begun to reassert themselves as some of the former Soviet territories and Republics reverse their primary political associations from west to east.  Yet, what is seen as a contemporary “turn to Russia” today would not be so much a “turn”, but perhaps a “re”-turn for some Eastern European states.

A brief look at Russian historical and territorial geography provides an insight into the recurring, although contentious, allegiance and memory across, now “independent,” territorial borders.  The ties that unite places like Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian core, are quite deep-rooted as they define significant parts of the shared “historical heartland” between these Slavic peoples.  Such memories are often revisited earnestly, despite their temporal distance of thousands of years back.  In more recent memory, the legacy of the Soviet system and its tenuous, federal “union” of diverse nationalities have also left an imprint.  The cultural organization of the Soviet system represented a fine line between political subordinance and cultural independence.   In the early 1990s, the appeal of cultural and political independence certainly won out.  However, the Soviet political and economic system, although globally judged as a failure, was somewhat a success on the ground as it provided a tangible safety net for people.  Communist-style support is now missed as capitalist alternatives have proven uneven and ultimately dissatisfactory.  In terms of global alliances, even former Republics that made the quickest turn to the West, are now rethinking such strategies as they find themselves increasingly peripheralized in complicated Western supra-national systems.  This geopolitical disillusionment has found a new opportunity as the Russian state has recently been making its own global resurgence, riding the wave of favorable global energy prices, reasserting its “need” for autocratic-style democracy, and reemerging as a global power in this multipolar world.

The strongest return has been that of Ukraine.  In 2004, the Orange Revolution was hoped to bring democracy and stronger ties to Europe.  However, since then, disenchantment has reigned and in February 2010 a pro-Moscow president was elected.  President Viktor Yanukovich ingratiated Ukraine with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, negotiating and signing some significant treaties and agreements that will have lasting effects.  This “re-turn” was not unilaterally endorsed, and some of the most comical political machinations resulted during the Ukrainian Parliament’s debate over these treaties.  Going even a step further, the new pro-Russian government is also rewriting its history books and erasing references to the pro-democracy interlude of the Orange Revolution.

In Latvia, economic troubles have contributed to the near return to Russian influence.  Historically, Latvia was one of the three Baltic States that declared their independence from the Soviet Union and made the quickest about face turn to the West.  However, following a recent economic collapse which associated blame with the West, the country nearly turned power over to a political party that is backed by the significant ethnic Russian population, itself a legacy of Soviet Russification.   Interestingly, there is an increasingly Latvian contingent that seems to view Russia as a lesser evil than Western Europe.

As Russia reemerges on the world political stage, there may be more former satellites that choose to return to its influence.  Especially as economic and governing politics in the European Union become increasingly uneven and contentious, perhaps even the most unexpected reversals may take place.

Political Economy and Global Europe: A two-part spatial saga

Part Two

Political Economy in Europe: Austerity and Political Repercussions

Geography, as a discipline, is well-suited to a review of the events of the European Debt Crisis, the resulting policies of austerity, and the social and political implications of those economic events.  As described in Part One, the world economy is deeply uneven, unequal and inequitable.  And yet, that unevenness still manages to affect many people and markets in far-reaching ways.  The bursting of the American housing market bubble instituted global recession, which exposed the overextended deficits of many European Union member states sending the region into its Debt Crisis.  Part Two of this saga will explore the role of the State, or national government, as well as the supra-State of the European Union in managing the crisis and what such a moment holds for the future of these institutions and for the peoples of Europe.

Political Economy

A political economy perspective of economic geography is worthwhile because of its focus on the social relations and power that underpin economic activities and outcomes.  In cultural and critical theories, this perspective is often broadly described as an analysis of the social and political context of phenomenon.  The social context refers to the many relationships between various groups of people in society that form the foundation for its interactions, like employers and workers in production activities.  The political context, in turn, refers to the power, or different abilities, capabilities, and capacities of certain people or groups to act in ways that will impact others.  This can be seen in the power of an employer to hire or fire employees; yet, that power is still subject to other decisions, perhaps some made by stockholders or by market conditions.

Political economists firstly see that there is no such thing as a “free” market and that economies are normatively regulated by larger social systems built on informal and formal habits, rules or customs.  The most power-ful actor in regulating economic geographies is the state.  The state is often more than just the national government, but it also includes its partnered set of public institutions all devoted to social and economic stability.  Thus, it is the state that has been charged with a litany of economic roles to influence a wide breadth of scales and peoples.  These many roles are divided into two main, related functions:  one focused on sustaining economic development or growth; and one focused on maintaining social order.  These functions are related in the global, capitalist system:  on one hand, the system requires economic growth and investment to fund state enterprises that redistribute the wealth associated with economic growth; and on the other hand, that reinvestment into the peoples’ wellbeing is seen to ensure the stability of social conditions required for economic growth to continue.  This partnership of private and public activity in the capitalist system is mutually dependent, for better or for worse.

The State and Economic Stability

There are two general scales that economic regulation occurs at in the European region, that of the European Union at the supranational scale and of the European state at the national scale.  In trying to recover economic stability, the EU supra-state has revisited its eurozone economic policies.  In so doing, the politics of power in the EU are revealed as complicated and compromise-oriented as the European Commission works on one set of new rules while a committee of member states works on another.  Further, the uneven power within the EU is also shown as leading economies like France and Germany call for the imposition of heavy sanctions to those members that exceed the deficit cap, now and in the future.  Although, in 2003 both countries had exceeded the deficit cap and, at the time, swayed the other member states to block sanctions that should have been applied.  Ultimately, the EU approved tougher rules, including sanctions, for the eurozone.  This ruling has also been made into a political opportunity to change the EU’s main governing treaty, the Lisbon Treaty.  The main proposed amendment to the treaty would primarily involve the creation of a permanent crisis fund.  At the national scale, the member states seem wary of this treaty change, as passing the Lisbon Treaty was a cumbersome effort at agreement across national boundaries.

Interestingly, there has been a near consensus in how member states have responded to their shrinking revenues and the resulting Debt Crisis.  Enter the “Age of Austerity”, where many European governments have started to reverse decades of “cradle-to-grave” social welfare policies that have made Western Europe a “lifestyle superpower.” This strikes at the heart of European lifestyles, social customs and political ideologies.  Such policies aimed at wellbeing have long been financed by debt in prosperous times and are now seen as a significant social burden in times of austerity.  And now that it is time for payback, the policies of the Social Democrats of the European political left have been silenced and their legitimacy bankrupt.  Cuts in services are especially difficult to accept as unemployment rates soar alongside national debts and personal incomes fall in step with national revenues.  The loss of the European socialist safety net is occurring when that safety net is most needed.

Austerity and Social Instability

This combination of social burden with debt burden has led to some significant compromises to the stability prized by national governments.  The first tremors were seen in Greece, where violent protests engulfed Athens and general strike echoed throughout the country.  Such demonstrations became a common reaction in the face of austerity cuts.  Workers across Europe organized for a “European Day of Action,” against austerity cuts in the European capitals of Spain, Greece, Belgium, Poland, Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, and Lithuania.  Later, the French came out again to dispute the raising of the retirement age and pension reforms.  France was paralyzed as students took to the streets and union workers went on strike for weeks creating fuel shortages, train and air delays.  Such prolonged protests threaten the political stability in Europe and the painful adjustments that come out of this economic crisis will certainly “test” established systems.  Already, debates in national governments are deadlocked as conservative and socialist legislators can’t find common ground for future budgets and the extent of austerity cuts.  States are effectively torn between their obligations and allegiances to markets or citizens.  At the peoples’ scale, these cutbacks are seen to result from the recklessness of the financial elite which now impact livelihoods and lifestyles of the many.  A series of interviews conducted by the New York Times in a piece titled, “The Austerity Zone: Life in the New Europe” revealed the anxious ambivalence of the western Europeans who look to both their national politicians to make necessary cuts and to the EU to fix the situation that led to such a crisis.

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